Kathmandu, April 30

With its three ventilator machines going defunct, nearly 15 patients at the National Trauma Centre had to wait for their turn for surgery for two days.

Of the four ventilator machines three have been dysfunctional for two days due to gas leakage problem, affecting nearly 30 patients who required a long duration surgery.

According to Executive Director of the Trauma Centre Dr Pramod Yadav, two machines were repaired only today.

Talking to THT, he said, “Two machines were repaired today and they have started providing service, while one has yet to be repaired. We need biomedical engineers from India to get the machine repaired.”

He also said that machines which had been bought four years ago required servicing every three months. The three machines had stopped working due to lack of regular servicing.

“Service charge per machine is Rs 1.5 million. Due to costly servicing the machines haven’t been serviced yet. It is also true that the country lacks human resource to repair the machine,” said Dr Yadav.

Another part of the problem is that the hospital administration failed to sign an annual maintenance contract with the machine dealer.

“If the hospital had signed an AMC, it would have been easier to get the machines serviced and repaired,” he said.

Nearly 20 people have been benefiting from the machines daily.

“We did not refer patients to other hospitals despite problems with the machines. But they had to wait in a queue for two additional days to get the service,” said Dr Yadav.